In a typical radio frequency (“RF”) communication network, the geographic area covered by the network is divided into a number of contiguous cells, each serviced by a stationary base station, and/or into sectors, which are portions of a cell typically serviced by different antennae/receivers supported on a single base station, e.g., a 60° or 120° “slice” of a cell. Data and other signals are transmitted from the base stations to various distributed mobile phones and other wireless units, which are carried by the network's users for accessing network communication services such as voice and non-voice data transfer. As the number of wireless users has increased (thereby increasing network load), and as commercial wireless and networking technologies have increased in sophistication and complexity (e.g., multiple antennas for diversity and/or beamforming purposes), network service providers have sought to increase the number of antennas and other equipment carried on each base station tower. This is problematic, however, in that base stations are limited in terms of the number of RF feed cables that can be run up the tower.
To explain further, in modern wireless systems one of the most severe limitations imposed on adaptive antenna arrays and other tower-based RF equipment is the number of RF feed cables per base station. Since tower top transceiver electronics are uncommon, antennas are typically connected to the base station electronics (e.g., housed at ground level in a building, cabinet, or other enclosure) by way of large-diameter, low-loss RF feed/antenna cables. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, in a typical dual-band base station architecture (where the base station 20 supports one cell 22 divided into three sectors 24a-24c) there are twelve antenna cables: a transmit antenna 26 and a receive antenna 28 for each communication band 30a, 30b in each sector 24a-24c. These cables impose significant weight and wind loading on the base station tower.